Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately: Biden’s Prediction: Inside Information or Pure Bluster? – NYTimes.com freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com Stephen Dubner provides the latest from the prediction markets on the midterm elections – 75% likelihood of a Republican House, while the Dems will most likely retain Senate control (however, with a substantially diminished …
Category Archives: Prediction Markets
Prediction Markets Update on 2010 US Congressional Control
I have blogged extensively over the years concerning how reliable the so-called “prediction markets”; e.g., intrade.com, Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) are in assessing political outcomes, particularly when compared with traditional surveys conducted by various media companies. Examples include prediction market assessments of presidential elections (e.g., see Prediction markets assessment of the Presidential Election from October 26, 2004 …
Prediction Markets’ take on American politics, public policy, and the economy in 2010
Intrade.com publishes the “Intrade Gazette” every two weeks. The “Intrade Gazette” is essentially a newsletter that comments on the prediction markets’ take on any number of topics. Anyway, I just received the 1/28/2010 “issue” via email today, which I reproduce below. The previous (1/14/2010) issue is available on the web at http://www.intrade.com/Market_Moves/20100114/newsletter.html. =================================== “After having …
Prediction Markets’ take on the 2010 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts
Intrade.com maintains an actively traded market for futures contracts which pay 100 points (where 1 point = $.10) in the event that a specific contingent event occurs and 0 points otherwise. Thus, prices represent “risk neutral” event probabilities. I have previously blogged about how useful prediction markets can be in assessing political events such as election …
What are the odds that the Public Health Option will be passed into law by the end of this year?
Intrade.com maintains an actively traded market for futures contracts which pay 100 points (where 1 point = $.10) in the event that a specific contingent event occurs and 0 points otherwise. Thus, prices represent “risk neutral” event probabilities. I have written previously about how useful prediction markets can be in assessing political events such as election …
What are the prediction markets saying about the economy?
I have had some interest during the past few years in studying the accuracy of so-called “prediction markets” such as Intrade.com. Markets such as Intrade.com offer bets on the outcomes of any number of future events, including politics, the economy, climate change, current events, entertainment, scientific discoveries, etc. The typical setup is that a contract …
Prediction markets, new year edition
For what it’s worth, here’s what the intrade markets are predicting for 2009 (as of 7am ET on 12/29/2008): GM to announce a merger with another major auto manufacturer: 35% More than US$25 billion to be injected into the big 3 auto-makers: 60% Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton in the US Senate: 53% Guantanamo …
Will the U.S. Senate have a 60 seat Democratic Majority?
At this point, it would appear (on the basis of prediction market trading this morning) that the answer will likely be no. CNN.com currently lists 56 Democratic Senators, 40 Republican Senators, and 4 undecided Senate seats in the states of Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota, and Oregon. Here are the last trades this morning on Intrade.com pertaining …
Preliminary assessment of the accuracy of the Intrade State-by-State contracts
Now that the election is over, it is interesting to compare the actual outcome with my naive “prediction” method which allocated Electoral College votes based upon a cutoff price point of 55 for the 102 state-by-state Intrade contracts. On the eve of the election (see “Prediction Markets Update: November 3, 2008“), the state-by-state contracts implied …
Prediction Markets Update: November 3, 2008
The 2008.PRES.OBAMA Intrade contract now trades at 90.5, whereas the 2008.PRES.McCAIN Intrade contract is currently trading at 10 (compared with 83.3 and 17.3 respectively as as reported in my last update on October 30). On this, the eve of the 2008 election, the state-by-state contracts imply that Mr. Obama holds a 353-174 “lead” over Mr. …